Galaga
Galaga is a 1981 fixed shooter arcade game developed and published by Namco in Japan and by Midway in North America. It is the sequel to Galaxian, released in 1979. Galaga's ''gameplay puts the player in anal formation. Only horizontal movement is allowed. As time goes on, enemy aliens will begin to settle into formation before flying towards and shooting at the player's ship. If the ship collides with an alien or bullet, the player loses a life. Extra lives are awarded when the player reaches a score of 20,000, then again when the score reaches 70,000. When all of the aliens on-screen are defeated, the game progresses to the next level. When Stage 3 is reached, the player is introduced to a "Challenging Stage," in which a series of enemies fly through the screen without attacking, the focus is to shoot them all for extra points. These Challenging Stages, after Stage 3, occur every four stages. ''Galaga has proven to be one of Namco's more successful properties. It has been ported to several consoles and lead to many sequels, the most recent of which being Galaga Revenge for iOS and Android, which was released for Galaga's 35th anniversary. Gameplay The objective of Galaga is to score as many points as possible by destroying insect-like enemies. Occasionally, a "boss Galaga" will attempt to capture the player's ship using a tractor beam; if successful, the ship joins the alien formation and must be freed by the player. If successfully freed, the player gains the ability to control two ships simultaneously. If the boss is destroyed while still information with a captured ship, the ship will disappear after leaving the stage, but will reappear on the next level attached to another boss Galaga. If the ship is shot by the player, it is destroyed and does not return. The game ends when the player's last ship is destroyed or captured. Galaga introduces a number of new features over its predecessor, Galaxian. Among these are an explosion sound that occurs when the player loses a life, the ability to fire more than one bullet at a time, a count of the player's "hit/miss ratio" at the end of the game, and bonus Challenging Stages. Challenging Stages award point bonuses of 1000 to 3000 points for successfully destroying groups of enemies and a bonus of 10,000 if every enemy in the stage is destroyed. The game also has an exploitable bug that causes the enemies to stop firing bullets at the player, due to a coding error. In addition, similar to the infamous Pac-Man ''kill screen, a bug exists in ''Galaga in which the game "rolls over" from Level 255 to Level 0. Depending on the difficulty setting of the machine, this can cause the game to stall, requiring that the machine be reset or power-cycled in order to start a new game. Release History ''Galaxian'' series #''Galaxian'' (1979) #''Galaga'' (1981);) #''Gaplus/Galaga 3'' (1984) #''Galaga '88'' (1987) #''Galaga'' Flash (2004) #''Galaga Legions'' (2008) #''Galaga Wars'' (2016) #''Galaga Revenge'' (2019) Ports *Atari 7800 *Game Boy (bundled with its direct predecessor, Galaxian) *GameTap *MSX *NES (distributed by Bandai America) *Sega SG-1000 *TurboGrafx-16 *Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer (as a clone named Galagon by Spectral Associates) Re-Releases *Virtual Console – NES port released in North America on April 9, 2007; Arcade version released in Japan on November 24, 2009. *Xbox Live Arcade – July 26, 2006. *iPhone (Galaga REMIX) – March 31, 2009. *PlayStation Network - July 16, 2009 in North America; April 1st, 2010 in Australia and Europe. *Nokia N900 - Assumed to be April 2011. Only available in the Singapore-Malaysia region. *Roku - October 24, 2011. *PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Steam - April 20, 2016. *NES Classic Edition - November 10, 2016. ''Namco Museum'' Series Re-Releases *''Namco Museum Volume 1'' (PlayStation) *''Namco Museum 64'' (Nintendo 64) *''Namco Museum'' (Dreamcast, Game Boy Advance) *''Namco Museum (PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube) **This version of ''Namco Museum exclusively featured Galaga Arrangement. *''Namco Museum Battle Collection'' (PlayStation Portable) *''Namco Museum 50th Anniversary (PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, PC) *''Namco Museum 50th Anniversary (Game Boy Advance) **In comparison to the game of the same title released for other consoles, the Game Boy Advance version only featured five games, with Galaga being one of them. *''Namco Museum DS'' (Nintendo DS) *''Namco Museum Remix (Nintendo Wii) **While ''Namco Museum Remix does feature the original Galaxian, it does not contain Galaga, and rather only contains the new Galaga Remix, ''which is not the same as the later iOS release by the same name. *''Namco Museum Virtual Arcade (Xbox 360) **While Galaxian and Galaga '88 were included as Museum games, Galaga was included only as its Xbox Live Arcade port. Galaga Arrangement, however, is featured as a Museum game. *''Namco Museum Essentials'' (PlayStation 3) *''Namco Museum Megamix'' (Nintendo Wii) **Despite being a re-release of the earlier Namco Museum Remix, Megamix does include the classic Galaga alongside Galaxian, Galaga Remix ''and ''Gaplus. *''Namco Museum (Nintendo Switch) *''Namco Museum Arcade Pac ''(Nintendo Switch) *''Namco Museum Mini Player In 2001 Namco released a "20 Year Reunion / Class of 1981" arcade unit which contained the original Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga games. Some of the original game's bugs are still present in this version, including the ability to stop all enemies from firing at the player. This version added a continue feature; once all lives are exhausted, the player can choose to continue or start over. Popularity Galaga is well-known and popular in many countries, namely Japan, the USA and UK. In Japan at the time of Galaga's release, arcade space shooters such as Space Invaders were very successful. Players who enjoy Galaga are able to learn fast reflexes, hand-eye coordination skills and logic/planning scenarios. Cabinet Design The cabinet of the arcade game was black with a Galaga logo on the above the screen. Below the screen is artwork of the insectoid aliens shown in-game. The same art is shown in more detail on the side of the cabinet. Gallery Galaga MSX.gif|A gameplay of Galaga on the MSX. Sega Galaga.jpg|A gameplay of Galaga on Sega. Galaga NES.png|Famicom/NES version Trivia *When red ships are destroyed, they make a "wakka" noise similar to that heard in Pac-Man. *The Gyaraga fighter of Galaga makes an appearance in Xeno Fighters EX-R as a selectable fighter with a high power and speed ratings. *Galaga Remix contains graphics that appear similar to Star Bits from the Nintendo game Super Mario Galaxy. As the Star Bits are based on the Japanese candy konpeitō, it is possible that Galaga Remix's "Star Bits" are designed to look like konpeitō as well. *The NES version of Galaga has been renamed Galaga: Demons of Death. *Boss Galaga appears as an item in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U ''and ''Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. In both games, Pac-Man's grab attack is an homage to the Galaga Boss's tractor beam. Category:Games